Shooting leaves student brain dead
Distraught students leave the school grounds in Chardon, Ohio (The Plain Dealer)
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A student wounded in a deadly US school shooting has been declared brain dead, authorities said, a day after one student was killed and three others injured when teenager opened fire in the cafeteria at a suburban Cleveland high school.
Russell King Jnr, 17, was one of five students injured when a suspect identified by a family lawyer as TJ Lane began shooting at Chardon High School on Monday morning. Student Daniel Parmertor died hours after the shooting.
A student who saw the attack up close said it appeared that the gunman targeted a group of students sitting together and that the one who was killed was gunned down while trying to duck under the cafeteria table.
Lane's family is mourning "this terrible loss for their community," attorney Robert Farinacci said.
FBI officials would not comment on a motive. And Police Chief Tim McKenna said authorities "have a lot of homework to do yet" in their investigation into the shooting, which sent students screaming through the halls at the start of the school day at Chardon High.
An education official said the suspected shooter is a Lake Academy student, not a student at Chardon High. Students may have been referred to the alternative school because of academic or behavioral problems.
The FBI said the suspect was arrested near his car half a mile from Chardon. He was not immediately charged.
Teachers locked down their classrooms as they had been trained to do during drills, and students took cover as they waited for the all-clear in this town of 5,100 people, 30 miles from Cleveland. One teacher was said to have dragged a wounded student into his classroom to protect him. Another chased the gunman out of the building, police said.
Mr Farinacci, representing Lane and his family, told WKYC-TV that Lane "pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about".
Long before official word came of the attack, parents learned of the bloodshed from students via text message and mobile phone and thronged the streets around the school, anxiously awaiting word on their children. Two of the wounded were listed in critical condition, and another was in serious condition.
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